


She Knows How to Whistle

by 105NorthTower



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Anti-Smut, Denmark Street, F/M, I LOVE SMUT, I'm insanely jealous of anyone who can, Strike's flat, The stairs, but I can't write it, if that's a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:08:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29295666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/105NorthTower/pseuds/105NorthTower
Summary: A challenge to myself. Write something lovely or at least let someone cop off. It's going to go badly and descend into fruit-based jokes, l can feel it.(Nods to Lauren Bacall as Marie 'Slim' Browning in To Have and Have Not)If you liked this, then I later wrote, You Know How To Whistle, Don't You? = the same little story from Strike's POV.(The books don't really mean much in relation to the text, with one exception. They were sort of a self-imposed prompt list, to stop me going off track.)
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 52
Kudos: 56





	1. The Thirty-Nine Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter One  
> Robin loves the Denmark Street office stairs. Possibly other things might get some love later, but for the moment, who needs men, when you've got cast iron?

Robin's organised mind associated the twenty-six steps to The Strike Ellacott Agency's offices in Denmark Street with career satisfaction and realisation of potential.

The first flight always seemed to elevate her mood as she left the streets packed with potential clients behind. Often she often barely grazed the first landing with her feet before plunging up the second flight towards her vocation. 

True, the second landing smelled of impending doom (and toilets) but she coped with this by keeping her eye on the glass door that led to the office and gripping the rail at all times (and holding her breath). 

The door itself made her heart swell with pride and she found it impossible not to pause just momentarily with her hand on the brass plate and bask in the glow of the gold lettering.

But she associated the thirteen remaining steps to the top floor with the thirteen sexiest words she'd ever heard.

Of course, she didn't think about THAT every time she came to work!

OK ... yes she did. A little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Thirty Nine Steps, John Buchan (1915)


	2. The Spy Who  Came in From The Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I love Robin but I find her voice impossible to mimic. Nice people are so much harder to write.
> 
> A pineapple almost got in here but I ruthlessly cut it out.

To add context (as an investigator, Robin always felt that context was important) the words had been spoken in the compact environment of Strike's flat, where she had gone to tell him about a last-minute change to the rota.

It had been a mistake. (It was the best ten minutes of her life.) It would never be possible to discuss it. (She wanted to throw open a window and shout ... something. Something bloody rude that would shock the pigeons.)

On the day in question, Strike had been in the office sorting out the paperwork for their accountant. It was not a job calculated to bring joy to anyone's heart, and nor was Pat company that tended to lighten his burden. When Robin arrived back from a snowy surveillance, having spent the December day trailing Two Times' latest squeeze, her flushed cheeks, windswept hair and aura of outdoor-job satisfaction seemed like the final straw, and Strike slouched off muttering about needing a fag break "before I strain something being nice."

He didn't come back.

Robin made tea for Pat and added dollops of sympathy. They finished off the paperwork and boxed it up ready for collection. By this time it was 5pm and there was no sign of Strike, so Pat said goodbye and Robin settled at her desk to write up her notes.

She was half way through when she heard Strike's heavy tread on the stairs. She heard him pause on the landing of doom and then he carried on. A jingle of keys and a door slamming, then a few small thumps and bangs, then silence. Robin made a mental note never to allow Pat and Strike to work on the finances together again.

At quarter to six, Barclay called to say he was going to be late tomorrow due to a family emergency, so she texted Strike.

**Sam out of action tomorrow until noon, I've got something on, can you swap surveillance with him?**

Strike was usually so good at texting back, but after ten minutes there was no response.

**Are you OK? Did you see my message about Sam?**

Nothing. It occurred to Robin that she hadn't heard a peep from the flat in twenty minutes.

**Text me to say you're OK or I'm coming up, you grumpy bugger**

After a minute, she received the reply she blamed for everything that came later.

**Enter at your own risk, Ellacott**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Spy Who Came in From The Cold, John le Carré (1963)


	3. Room At the Top

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which odd things happen.
> 
> I'm racing ahead before I lose my nerve and crumple into a distressed heap. I was happy before I started this and now there's about twenty other things I've decided I've got to start writing. So that's good, in a way.

"Strike?"

Robin tapped gently at the door.

"Are you there?"

A muffled voice.

"Just change the rota and text me what you've done. I'm fine. Go home."

Robin deliberated, then she retreated to the office to text Sam, tidy her desk and switch all the lights off. All was normal.

Then some odd things happened.

She closed the door, locked it and stood for an extended period, despite the hairs on the back of her neck rising, on the landing of doom. Odd.

Her path was clear. Straight ahead, down twenty six steps of ambition and destiny, Denmark Street, tube, home, bath. 

She turned right and went up thirteen steps. Odd.

Reaching the door to Strike's flat it was obvious that a knock was required. She went straight in. Odd.

"Robin?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not good company right now. Best I see you tomorrow."

It was dark but she could see Strike's outline - he was perched on a high stool by the counter that separated his kitchen from the rest of the flat. He wasn't drinking*. He wasn't looking at her. He was quite still.

She'd been given a very clear indication that her company wasn't wanted and she should depart. 

She closed the door behind her and dropped her bag and coat in a heap that stuck two fingers up at the notion of creases. Odd.

Compounding the oddness, Robin crossed to the living area and turned on a lamp. She always respected his space and belongings utterly, so she couldn't explain why she'd done any of it. 

Then she went to lean on the counter with Strike and she did not say, "OK I'll see you tomorrow."

She did not say, "Hope you're feeling better soon."

She did not say, "Are you sure there's nothing you need?"

Although these were all very kind, respectful, decent, Robin-y things to say.

She said nothing at all. 

* (I TOLD you!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Room at the Top, John Braine (1957)


	4. Fahrenheit 451

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thirteen little words. I've agonised over these, I promise. As Trigger said, “This old broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles.

"I'm so tired of wondering what it would be like to have you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (1953)


	5. Appassionata

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feels like my whole existence has narrowed to the question of whether I can get these two to touch each other before the end of this story. There's got to be a name for what I've got. 😬

Robin had read a skip full of chick lit in her thirty years and was used to its contrivances.

They'd come to her aid when that part of her life was unsatisfactory and cold, when she needed an image to focus on alone in her bed, under her husband or during a shower, but she now realised they didn't know horse shit (yes, Horse Shit, Jilly) about her.

Nothing she'd ever read in the most florid romance had made her feel remotely as stirred as this did.

Strike's gaze was fixed on a point in the flecked pattern of the Formica, as if in shock at his own words having escaped his body, and Robin took the opportunity of his silence to do an internal audit of her own desires.

The whisky-soaked evening of confidences shared, secrets kept and declarations of friendship, and the champagne-tinted euphoria of her thirtieth birthday were long gone. After the high drama of the Bamborough case they'd settled back into an easy comradeship, and it sometimes felt to Robin that the only lingering signs of the feelings that were kindled then were a balloon donkey that had lost an ear and now rested his nose on her bedside table and a signature scent she'd grown to love.

Not much to base a decisive act upon.

What would Jilly do? 

Robin had the uncomfortable conviction that if she went the chick lit way she and Strike would have pounced on each other minutes ago and be well on the way to something that felt inevitable and climactic, yet fully consensual in a ravishing kind of way. He would have invaded her space, there would have been desperation in their kissing, perhaps he would have said, _are you sure?_ and then she would have said, _yes I am_ , and he would have groaned his approval and desire and they would have made love, probably standing up, even though there was a perfectly good bed a few feet away. 

After almost two years without any warm body making its urges count in her bed, she had to admit Jilly's way had a lot going for it.

No, she didn't hate the idea of any of that. 

Except it didn't feel like her and Strike.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Appassionata, Jilly Cooper (1996)


	6. To Have and Have Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, they made it, at least, as far as I can get them. Never let me do this again.

_I'm so tired of wondering what it would be like to have you._

_Yes, she thought._

***

"I think," Robin said tentatively, "That I'm going to kiss you."

He looked up, suddenly amused. "Yeah?"

"I think so."

He turned his chair sideways and faced her. "Should you go being so bold without holding a team meeting?"

"Shut up, Strike. I'm a partner."

He nodded and after a pause, raised his eyebrows in a question. "Now?"

'Uh-huh. Right now."

So she did. It wasn't gentle, or tentative, or starting small and growing in confidence. It did not remind her of feathered things. It was instantly deep and probing and hot. Like lovers. Like they were.

They broke apart and Robin turned away a little, thoughtful. Strike picked up a lighter and tapped it on the Formica. After a moment, he blurted "Robin. Look ..."

"OK."

"What does that mean? What's 'OK' now? Oh Christ, why are you doing that?"

Robin placed her KonMari folded shirt on the Formica.

"I want to know how your mouth feels."

"Is this really how it's done?"

"I don't know." she shrugged. "It's how I'm doing it." She stepped in between his feet and gave him an encouraging smile.

Under his breath, "Why can't I ever pick a normal one?"

"Strike, do you want to ..."

His hands rested on her hips, and he dipped his head to the base of her neck and mouthed the skin there softly. 

She closed her eyes, anticipating more, and then opened them again to find him looking at her.

"Are you here?"

"Cormoran?"

"If we're doing this, I need you here with me. I'm not your safe haven, Robin. Not your panic room. Not when it comes to this. I want it all."

"I know."

He went back to her skin and kissed words on it at regular intervals, from her neck to her bra strap. "This. Is. Real. Ellacott ..."

"Uh-huh."

'You. Are. Getting. Happy. With. The. Boss"

"Partner!"

His chuckle was so low and dirty she had to reach for the back of the bar stool. His hands curved lower and brought their hips together.

"Oh, you ARE here ..."

"Strike?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you OK with the bed?"

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Have and Have Not, Ernest Hemingway (1937)


End file.
